


A Mother's Care

by bar2d2s



Category: Impulse (Comics), The Flash (Comics), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Parent/Child Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 04:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19099816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: She is not his mother, and he is not her son. But they are all the other has, so they'll have to make due.





	A Mother's Care

She looks in on him as he sleeps and repeats to herself, “This is my son. This is my son.”

He’s not, not really.

Their first meeting was- terrifying, isn’t quite the word. Disconcerting, maybe. His hair had been brown at the time, and longer than she’d last seen on Bart, but his face was the same. This was her son, in a strange new color scheme, come to rescue her from the clutches of the evil man who’d raised her.

But it _wasn’t_  Bart, and he  _hadn’t_  rescued her. Instead, her father had merely stood there mocking the boy that wore her son’s face. Of  _course_  he’d built the inability to harm a member of the Thawne family into his DNA, what did this boy think he was, some trusting  _fool_? An  _Allen_ , maybe? And it stung, knowing that this boy was her son, twisted, perverted for her father’s own dark agenda…but because of those eyes, that face, she couldn’t let him get hurt.

And that was how Thad had ended up in her small personal apartment, a second prisoner inside this modestly-decorated cage.

She’d helped him cut and dye his hair back to his preferred style, set him up in his own little room. Fed him and offered to play games with him. But all he did was watch her, listen to her as she spoke. Winced whenever she mentioned Bart, her  _real_  son.

He wouldn’t speak to her at first, mostly because he couldn’t think of anything to say. He’d spent a lifetime studying the weaknesses of the Allen family, who would guess that his own weakness would be, well, having a family of his own? Because Meloni was his mother.  _Hers_ were the only genes he held, after all. He got her eyes, the roundness of her face, her large feet, they even had the same shaped noses and mouths. He was her son.

Except, he wasn’t.

“He grew me in a tank, you know. For hundreds of years. I wasn’t born until you’d all been dead long enough that the only memory of the Thawne/Allen feud was… _me_.”

Days had passed in silence from him, before he opened with a bomb. She’d tried to hug him then, Meloni. His mother. But he’d kept her at arm’s length, the memories of Max and Helen were still too fresh. Bart would come all too soon to rip this parental figure away from him, he just  _knew_  it.

“They’re different when you finally meet them, right? The people you’re taught from birth to hate?”

Don and Dawn had been so wonderful to her, so accepting of her weird little quirks and her less than trusting nature. And Iris! Iris had treated her like a second daughter, so glad that Don had found someone who’d loved him so much. She missed them all, every day. Even more, now that she had someone to take care of, who wouldn’t allow her to take care of him.

“I can’t even call Jeven to see how my niece is doing, because I don’t want my father to find them and destroy that girl’s life more than he already has.”

Their days together pass in quiet contentment. Meloni plays music, and watches holoprograms. Sometimes they go out to acquire groceries, under heavy guard of course. President Thawne calls often, if only to reassure himself that his daughter and his creation haven’t gone anywhere. They haven’t. They can’t. Where would they even go?

He doesn’t want to talk about Bart. He never wants to talk about Bart. But Meloni does, and there’s a part of him that would do anything for her, so he tries.

“He never… _did_  anything to me. If he fought me, it was because I’d initiated it. And in the end, he would have willingly died for someone, based on the strength of his love for them.”

Thad won’t talk about his time in the Speed Force, or his time spent masquerading as Bart. If he starts, he’ll have to admit that those weeks were the happiest of his life. How he’d loved being the hero for once, how right it felt to be praised for a job well done, by people that loved him.

“I could have never been him. I could have never been that genuinely  _good_.”

He can move at the speed of light, can see Meloni coming millimeter by millimeter as she grabs him and pulls him close. But he won’t stop her. Not this time.

“You’re  _good_ , Thad. You have the exact same capacity for good that any human being has, and you are taking steps to embrace that goodness, and as your mother, I am  _proud of you_.”

He wants to tell her that he’s not a human being. That she isn’t his mother. That he’s done horrible things that he hasn’t even  _begun_  to make up for yet. But he loves her. He loves her so much, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s programmed to, or because she’s here for him in a way his creator could never be. His heart feels like it’s choking him, crawling up his throat to throw itself at her feet.

The tears are a surprise. He can’t ever remember crying before, is even genuinely shocked he’d been built with the ability to cry. But he does cry; long, gasping sobs into Meloni’s shoulder. She’s not a tall woman, and he’s going to tower over her one day. Which means he needs to take every opportunity he can to be small and vulnerable, safe in his mother’s arms.

They talk more now, in English, once Thad has found and removed all the bugs President Thawne had placed in their home. The language is dead in this time, but Meloni is a faster learner than he thought she would be. They talk about revolution, about overthrowing her father’s iron-fisted regime. Thad would follow her to war, even if he couldn’t deliver the killing blow that would end it. 

They talk about the 21st century, about Max, and Helen. The kids in his old school. Young Justice. And eventually, they do talk about Bart. Meloni even lets him in on a secret about her time in hiding, one that not even her father knows.

“His name is Owen.” She says one night, while they’re chopping vegetables. She likes cooking by hand, says it’s a good bonding exercise. Thad likes being reminded of how well she can wield a knife, proof of how she could protect herself if something should happen to him. “He’s safe, home in his father’s time. Safe, away from all of this, away from me.”

And he knows how sad it makes her, having to let other people raise her children. It’s why she’s trying so hard with him, to be his mother and his general and his friend.

“We’ll find him too, as soon as we can.”

It’s not an empty promise, he tells himself, not so long as they can dream of escape. And it makes her smile, which is worth the world in itself.

“I know we will. And then all my boys will be together for the first time. Grife, imagine how awkward  _that_  will be!”

He can see the humor in it, and laughs along with her, but the truth is…he’s excited. They have something to work towards now, together. A free Earth, and the personal freedom to traverse the time stream at will. Time will only bring them closer, strengthen their bond.

And he knows he should feel badly about how the next time Meloni sees Bart again, she’ll most likely think of him as the boy wearing  _his_ face…but he can’t.

In this one, tiny, immensely important battle, he’s won.


End file.
